Is There Such a Thing as Healthy Shame and Embarrassment? | JoAnna Hardy

A Buddhist recipe for speaking, working, and living in a way that will make you happy. JoAnna Hardy https://www.joannahardy.org/ has practiced in multiple traditions since 1999. She is currently a meditation trainer at Apple Fitness+ https://www.apple.com/apple-fitness-plus/, a visiting teacher at Black Being LA https://blackbeingla.org/, a visiting retreat teacher at Insight Meditation Society https://www.dharma.org/, and about to embark on a new mystery journey! In this episode we talk about: Sila, the Buddhist code of ethics Concepts such as right livelihood and right speech Why we lie The power of Buddhist tattoos Hiri and Otappa (AKA healthy shame and healthy embarrassment) Related Episodes: How to Speak Clearly, Calmly, and Without Alienating People | Dan Clurman and Mudita Nisker https://www.danharris.com/p/how-to-speak-clearly-calmly-and-without-a33?utm_source=publication-search Oren Jay Sofer, Practicing Mindful Communication https://www.danharris.com/p/oren-jay-sofer-practicing-mindful-781?utm_source=publication-search The Buddha's 8-Part Manual for a Good Life | Brother Pháp Dung https://www.danharris.com/p/the-buddhas-8-part-manual-for-a-good-bac?utm_source=publication-search The Surprising Power of "Healthy Embarrassment" | Koshin Paley Ellison https://www.danharris.com/p/the-surprising-power-of-healthy-embarrassment-632?utm_source=publication-search The Selfish Case for Being Ethical | Eugene Cash https://www.danharris.com/p/the-selfish-case-for-being-ethical-a4b?utm_source=publication-search Join Dan's online community here http://www.danharris.com/ Follow Dan on social: Instagram https://bit.ly/3tGigG5, TikTok https://bit.ly/3FOA84J Subscribe to our YouTube Channel https://bit.ly/3FybRzD Get ready for another Meditation Party at Omega Institute! This in-person workshop brings together Dan with his friends and meditation teachers, Sebene Selassie, Jeff Warren, and for the first time, Ofosu Jones-Quartey. The event runs October 24th-26th. Sign up and learn more here http://eomega.org/workshops/meditation-party-2025! Tickets are now on sale for a special live taping of the 10% Happier Podcast with guest Pete Holmes! Join us on November 18th in NYC for this benefit show, with all proceeds supporting the New York Insight Meditation Center. Grab your tickets here https://www.nyimc.org/event/great-cosmic-joke/! To advertise on the show, contact [email protected] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10HappierwithDanHarris Thanks to our sponsors: Airbnb: Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.com/host http://airbnb.com/host. AT&T: Staying connected matters. That's why AT&T has connectivity you can depend on, or they will proactively make it right. Visit att.com/guarantee http://att.com/guarantee for details. Function: Our first 1000 listeners get a $100 credit toward their membership. Visit www.functionhealth.com/Happier http://www.functionhealth.com/Happier or use the gift code Happier100 at signup to own your health.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:56Dan Harris?

  This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris.

• 1:11Dan Harris?

  Hello, my fellow suffering beings. How we doing today? Many people get their back up when they hear the word ethics. I get it. The word brings to mind images of finger wagging hypocrites thundering from behind a pulpit. Ethical guidelines have too often been used to circumscribe the actions and options of the many and privilege the few. But Buddhism, in my view, is quite different in this regard. In Buddhism, ethics are not supposed to be about moralizing. They're supposed to be about making you happier. It's enlightened self-interest. There's a term I like, I don't know who coined it, the bliss of blamelessness. If your mind isn't aflame, ruminating upon all of the shabby

• 1:55Dan Harris?

  ways in which you've treated other people, and if it's not spinning out trying to find ways to keep all of your lies straight, there's a lot more room for calm, quiet creativity. All the good stuff. One of the greatest Western teachers on this subject of Buddhist ethics is, in my opinion, Joanna Hardy, who also happens to be a friend. One of the many things I love about Joanna is that she's totally open about her past transgressions and actually her current transgressions as well. She's not trying to pretend to be perfect, which makes her, I think, a more effective proponent of Buddhist ethics. She also has a pleasingly foul mouth. You're going to hear references to sex with melons in this conversation. Just a little bit more about Joanna.

• 2:38Dan Harris?

  She has practiced in multiple traditions since 1999. She's a meditation trainer at Apple Fitness Plus, a visiting retreat teacher at Insight Meditation Society, and much more. In this conversation, we talk about sila, which is the Buddhist term for ethics. We cover concepts such as right livelihood, right speech. We talk about why we lie, the power of Buddhist tattoos, which I'm becoming increasingly convinced of. We talk about concepts hiri and otapa. Those are Pali terms. Pali is the language in which the teachings of the Buddha were written down. Hiri and otapa basically mean healthy shame and healthy embarrassment. It's kind of provocative, the idea that there's a type of shame that might be healthy, and we talk about much more.

• 3:24Dan Harris?

  There's a custom-guided meditation that comes with today's episode. It's designed to help you put sila into practice in your daily life. It's not about following some arbitrary set of rules or being perfect. It's about tuning into what our Teacher of the Month, Sebene Selassie, calls your inner guidance system. Sign up at danharris.com if you want to get that meditation from Sebene and all the other guided meditations that we're now producing to go along with our Monday, Wednesday episodes. Subscribers also get access to our weekly meditation and Q and A sessions, which we do live on video every Tuesday at 4 Eastern. If you miss it, though, we send out the video afterwards. The next one is October 21st. It's going to be Seb Solo. Sign up, join the party.

• 4:04Dan Harris?

  And if you want to meditate with me in person, I am co-leading a weekend retreat very soon, October 24th through 26th, at the Omega Institute in upstate New York. It's going to be me, Sabine Selassie, Jeff Warren, and Afosu Jones-Cortez. It'll be super fun. We do a session Friday night, two sessions on Saturday, and then a final one on Sunday morning. In between, lots of free time to hike, play tennis, get a massage, do yoga, whatever. The sessions mix meditation, discussion among the teachers, discussion among the audience members. The idea is really to mix serious meditation practice with socializing, and that's why we call it Meditation Party. I'll put a link in the show notes if you want to sign up. Okay, we'll get started with Joanna Hardy right after this.

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• 5:46Dan Harris?

  Joanna Hardy, welcome back to the show.

• 5:48Speaker 04

  Thank you. I'm very excited to see you again.

• 5:50Dan Harris?

  Likewise.

• 5:50Speaker 04

  Just to even be in this space with you is really nice.

• 5:52Dan Harris?

  I know.

• 5:53Speaker 04

  Because I think I never have.

• 5:54Dan Harris?

  We've never done this show together in the same space.

• 5:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:57Dan Harris?

  I have a visual in my head of doing something together.

• 6:00Speaker 04

  On Zoom.

• 6:01Dan Harris?

  Was it Zoom?

• 6:02Speaker 04

  Yeah. We did that COVID one, COVID Deniers, and that was on Zoom, obviously, because it was in the middle of COVID. The other was a... An election insanity or sanity or something. Oh, no, there was one time Sharon Salzberg in New York. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah, it's been a while, though.

• 6:19Dan Harris?

  Well, yeah, it's nice to be in person. We're in L.A. together. Let me start with a very basic question for you.

• 6:24Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 6:25Dan Harris?

  What is sila? S.I.L.A. What does that word mean?

• 6:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, simply translated to ethics or the way we show up, behave through our speech and action in the world. It's a Buddhist concept. The word sila is a Pali, which is the original language of the Buddha. I know you know this, but for anyone listening, that word sila translates to ethics. I can unpack.

• 6:49Dan Harris?

  Please do, yes.

• 6:50Speaker 04

  So ethics lives in a particular place in the Eightfold Path, which is really kind of our guideposts and our, what is laid out as our practice. The whole of the practice is in the Eightfold Path in Buddhism, and it has three aspects. There's the sila, which is this ethical part that we're going to unpack a bit, samadhi, which is our actual meditation practice, and panya, which is our wisdom practice. Many people come through different aspects of the practice. Some people read a book, so the wisdom piece, reading a book and understanding what we know to be like these truths of existence would be what lives in wisdom, the wisdom aspect, something like, people might have heard of the Four Noble Truths, but there's

• 7:35Speaker 04

  also dukkha nita nata is in there, which is really just understanding the truth of the way things are. So that's in this wisdom piece, or wise intention is in this wisdom piece. And then the sila is how we live, again, through our actions, through our speech, through our livelihood, which I think you and I have really fortunately found a way to do that. It might have taken a while, but we got here.

• 8:00Speaker 04

  And then the samadhi, or which is our actual meditation practice. So mindfulness is one of them, our effort towards mindfulness, and then our concentration. So those are all eight. And really, truly, it's not a linear path. None of the eight live without each other. They all really kind of work with and for each other. And as we talk about sila, I'll explain how sila is really supported by our mindfulness practice, our samadhi and our wisdom. But like I said, for me, the doorway I came in through was through Sila. I was suffering a lot and most of my suffering was through the drastic amounts of pain I was causing myself and other people in my life from a pretty young age.

• 8:41Speaker 04

  There was just one point when I knew there had to be a better way and I knew that all the harm I was causing myself wasn't it. I did a lot of other practices before I got here, but this one made the most clear sense to me, how it was laid out and how I then learned it. And so within Sila, like I said, there's how we speak and act, our actions and speech. And within that lives the precepts, which a lot of us have heard about. I don't know how much you want me to say right now before you ask me a question. I'll just like be like.

• 9:14Dan Harris?

  No, I love. You're very passionate about it.

• 9:17Speaker 04

  It's a fire hose. I am, totally.

• 9:19Dan Harris?

  Let me just reset the table, just to make sure that everybody's got it. So, one of the foundational lists in Buddhism.

• 9:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:26Dan Harris?

  The Buddha liked to make lists.

• 9:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:28Dan Harris?

  His first list was the Four Noble Truths. The fourth entry on the Four Noble Truths is a list within a list, a nested list, and it's called the Eightfold Path and it's basically a recipe, a cookbook for getting enlightened. And it has, as you might imagine, these eight folds, these eight entries. And as you said, the eight entries on the Eightfold Path, the eight aspects of the path, are divided up into three buckets.

• 9:55Speaker 04

  Correct.

• 9:56Dan Harris?

  One of the buckets is meditation or samadhi. The other is wisdom, which is one of the fruits of meditation and the Pali word for that is panya. And then the third, which we're going to talk about today, is Sila, which is ethics, which sounds a little bit like somebody thundering at you from a pulpit on Sunday morning, telling you how to run your life.

• 10:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:17Dan Harris?

  As we'll discuss, there are some broad guidelines about like not killing and not stealing, but as you will explain, like actually ethics in this context is much more self-interested. It's like, here's some guardrails that will help you be happier and that will actually be supported by your meditation practice.

• 10:36Speaker 04

  Correct.

• 10:36Dan Harris?

  And also support the meditation practice.

• 10:39Speaker 04

  Correct.

• 10:39Dan Harris?

  It's quite interesting. And one last thing that you said that I just want to make sure I restate for people is that within Sila, there are these five precepts agreements that we make as Buddhists, which you don't even have to call yourself a Buddhist to adopt these. It's not like commandments, they're not. Etched in stone in the same way. They're also a lot less specific.

• 10:59Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 10:59Dan Harris?

  There's nothing about like coveting your neighbor's wife or anything like that. It's a little bit more broad and there's a lot more room to play and interpret for yourself. So did I sum up what you were talking about?

• 11:10Speaker 04

  Absolutely. Yeah. And to really pinpoint what you were saying, my biggest turn on about Buddhism in general and the precepts specifically is it wasn't a dictate, you know, it wasn't a command. There's not a lot of judgment or criticism in it because I grew up Catholic and then I moved to another tradition. That was very much like you better, you must. And what this told me was my own level of maturity, my own level of self-reflection, my own inner conscience was what I got to look towards. I studied psychology for a while and it was like this good enough parent idea. You know, I felt like the Buddha was a good enough parent, right? Cause there was a lot of permission, like you said, but the permission was also to check it out.

• 11:52Speaker 04

  See the ick factor for yourself, like see what actually hurts, see what doesn't feel good. See what you know, if it isn't conditioned out of us, or you know, if we haven't in some way numbed out. We really have the opportunity to check it out for ourselves. That was my biggest turn on because I was always a rebellious person and part of why I got in trouble. But I found the harder the rules and dictates, the less I understood or were interested in even trying to understand. But I sure knew what it felt like to lay in bed in the morning and just be like, what did I do yesterday? This doesn't feel good. I don't want to live like this. So that was my biggest turn on about this practice.

• 12:33Speaker 04

  Again, whether it's being Buddhist or not, it didn't matter, but there was so much clarity, so much permission. And no one was looking over my shoulder and I didn't need to look over anyone's shoulder. Right? So that's another part about the precepts that I like. Cause I can be, ask anybody that knows me well, I can be like, wait a minute, do this this way, right? There's a right way and I don't mean right and wrong, like good and bad or good and evil. I just mean like you didn't clean the house, right? Like that kind of right, you know? So I'm, I'm real good at that, but what I Really like about this is it also gave me permission to not have to call anyone else out for their Sila or for how they're showing up in the world because we're using the term

• 13:16Speaker 04

  fuck around and find out right now. So in many ways, that's what it is. It's like fuck around and find out. And we get to do that. And we get to see the constant mirroring in our relationships. And when we talk about here, you know, Taba, if we're going to go into that, I'll unpack that a little bit more. But yeah, the precepts really truly in Sila are, you know, we look at them as aspirational tools, as guidelines, as a possibility. And those possibilities can even be, you know, why I still like talking about this and why it's still interesting to me is as I watch my interests unfold into sort of societal or cultural Sila, like if we were to give America

• 13:57Speaker 04

  an archetype, or if we were to give a certain community or a religion or a race, an archetype, not that anything is monolithic in that way. But, you know, if we think about what has been indoctrinated into us, a certain precept, like even the first precept of not to kill, which a lot of times, that means not taking the life of another sentient living being. So that can be broken down a lot. And this can be debated a lot, you know, especially in terms of like veganism, or, you know, how we might eat. For me personally, I prescribe to be a vegan. Veganism is where my heart lives. It's not where my body lives. And every time, I have this

• 14:39Speaker 04

  interesting story where I'd been a vegan for about two and a half, three years. And I was following a Hindu tradition at the time. You know, it was one of the things that culturally was specified. Plus, it felt right. In my heart, it felt right. Like, that's what I wanted to be doing. I was the mom, a single mom of two young kids at the time. And I felt like shit. Most of the time, I was exhausted. I was tired. I had anemia. And I went to this nutritionist, and she was a psychic nutritionist. And she had been a Nazi youth. So she grew up during

• 15:15Speaker 04

  The Third Reich. And she was a captive. So her parents were German Nazis. She was a captive in the concentration camps. And what ended up happening with a lot of those kids is they were as malnourished. They were abandoned also, right, by their parents. And they were just put in these camps and pretty left on their own. Anyway, when the war was over, she was an orphan at that point and was discovered by this man who was a nutritionist. His plight was to bring these children back to health. And they all had scurvy. You know, they were malnourished. So anyway, she has a very interesting story, but she then had this ability. She became a nutritionist as a woman. So when I met her, she was probably 85. And she showed me the tattoos, her concentration camp tattoos on her arms.

• 16:00Speaker 04

  And I said, you know, I really don't want to eat meat. She said, but you have to. She said, treat it as medicine. Every time you eat it, honor it. Thank the animal. And then she looked at me and she said, you know, Hitler was a vegetarian. And I said, wow, no, I didn't know that. And she said, so it's not always, you know? She was like, well, so it's not always the only ethical way to go. So I took that in and I've tried again. This was probably 20 years ago. I've tried multiple times to be vegan again, and each time I suffer. So that's what interests me like around these Sila pieces, around these precepts, right?

• 16:40Speaker 04

  Is how a certain culture might see something as ethically really wrong. It might be a law even. You know, when I think of the laws of slavery or the Jim Crow laws or these kind of things that were laws. And so there's a right and wrong to it in society. Yet these precepts are really less about that, right? So it's like for these humans that might live in societal laws, but always kind of know it doesn't feel quite right. Those kids that decide they're gonna leave the religion or leave the the way that the family grew up because it doesn't quite fit them. So why, again, I like these is these precepts is for us

• 17:24Speaker 04

  and only us to kind of grapple with and ponder and practice and settle. So when I give them as a practice to students, I've led many, you know, five-week-long courses and I'll have them do one precept a week and just really live in it and see how it feels, how their body responds, how their heart responds, how their mind responds, and take it in that way. Yeah.

• 17:49Dan Harris?

  It's really consonant with one of the Buddha's slogans, which was, "Come see for yourself."

• 17:55Speaker 04

  Right.

• 17:55Dan Harris?

  You rephrased it in two ways. One is, "Check it out." And the other is, "Fuck around and find out." And I love that. The spirit of it is really different from a commandment. It's like, hey, do you want to be happy? I recommend, don't lie a lot.

• 18:14Speaker 04

  Right.

• 18:14Dan Harris?

  Don't lie at all. And when you do lie.

• 18:16Speaker 04

  What happens?

• 18:17Dan Harris?

  Yeah.

• 18:17Speaker 04

  Yeah. How does it feel? How does it feel for the other person? How does it feel for you? Do you have to keep lying to keep up the first lie? Yeah. Why do you have to lie? Like, what's the purpose? Then we get to keep digging deeper. Like, a lot of people merely lie. Sometimes it's because it's funnier, right? Like, sometimes we lie because it just makes a better story. Sometimes we lie because we want to be liked. Sometimes we lie because we think we're saving somebody else's feelings. You know, there's a lot of reasons why people lie. And so I actually have a friend who said she was just completely not, and this is a person who does not lie. She was worried about lying on a form for her immigration papers, right? So she was like, "I don't even want to have to stretch the truth in any way in that way." Because for her, it was just not feeling good.

• 19:02Dan Harris?

  Yeah.

• 19:03Speaker 04

  Also, again, why not to judge anybody else or yourself? If something comes up, parent wants their kid to be in a certain school district, so they use their cousin's address to get in that school district because it's a better school district for their kids. Like, okay, not telling the truth. And is it something that we need to suffer about? I mean, maybe you do, maybe you don't. But it's for us to fuck around and find out, right?

• 19:28Dan Harris?

  Right.

• 19:28Speaker 04

  Yeah. How does it land? And then also, another piece of that is... Like how much dissociating or dissonance is involved? In some ways, how much do we lie to ourselves so that something can be okay? You know, oftentimes, people don't know. It takes a big unraveling. And that's where this whole of the path is. Like you and I know that I liked the idea of sila. That was my entry, but it really took me sitting and sitting and meditating and meditating and kind of unraveling the mind, you know, and its habits and its conditioning from birth to really start to understand even when I was lying to myself.

• 20:12Speaker 04

  That again, is why I like that word path is because it has a distance to it. It has longevity to it. It's not fast food. It's not a drive through. Yeah, and there's something that always to aspire to. Yeah.

• 20:26Dan Harris?

  So there are a bunch of key terms and lists that we want to work through. Just to recapitulate a bit, we are going to talk about sila, which is again, one of the aspects of the Eightfold Path. There are three entries in the Eightfold Path that have to do with ethics. We'll go through those and then we'll talk about the five precepts. And then I also want to talk about something else here in Otobah. So I don't know if we'll get to all this. We'll see how it goes.

• 20:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, let's see what I know. Shoot.

• 20:57Dan Harris?

  So in the Eightfold Path, and hopefully listeners are with me, the Dharma gets very nerdy. The Eightfold Path, all of the aspects of the Eightfold Path either use the word right or wise. So like right speech or wise speech, right action.

• 21:13Speaker 04

  And we can leave the right out or the wise.

• 21:16Dan Harris?

  Right.

• 21:17Speaker 04

  We'll just say the word.

• 21:18Dan Harris?

  Okay. So speech, action, livelihood. Those are the three aspects of sila within the Eightfold Path. So let's talk about speech.

• 21:25Speaker 04

  Yeah. So speech mostly. Is it true? Right? Is it true? Again, like, what's true? Like, what's true to you? What's true to me? We often say it's the capital T true versus the small t true. Like, true for me is I love chocolate or whatever. That's really true for me.

• 21:42Speaker 04

  But the capital T truths that we're talking about, is it true? Is it a lie? To the best of your knowledge, are you telling the truth? Right? And how much we spread untruths because we heard it and believed it? That's a whole other thing. But is it true to the best of our knowledge? And what we're sharing? Is it gossip or slander? When is our speech tearing somebody else down? Or are we using it to put somebody else down? Or heighten ourselves up? Is it timely? Is one of my favorite ones. Because when we're using speeches, it's kind of like, how useful is it? How needed is it? So is it timely? It's like, I know that when my husband walks in the door and he's had a day filled with his writing

• 22:24Speaker 04

  and his head is not in the space to want to hear me talk about the contractor. It's not the right time. Or if one of my favorite things is like, read the room. Right? Like, why speeches sort of like, read the room? If, know who you're talking to. Know if they're ready to listen. Know if it's the right time to listen. If somebody's really suffering, might not be the right time to share a really big, exciting thing that's in my life. It might not be sensitive. Not that what I want to share isn't true, but it might not be the right time. There's also, is it kind? And this is one that, is it kind? Someone could say, well, it's true. And it's timely. But is it kind?

• 23:08Speaker 04

  Just because it's true does not mean it's kind. Or just because it's kind does not mean it's true. So we're not talking about nice. We're talking about kind in that way. Like, is it helpful? Is this gonna help the other person to hear it? What else is in that list? Is it useful? Is it useful? It's a big one. And they all kind of wrap around each other in many ways. So does this person really?

• 23:31Speaker 04

  Need to hear this or want to hear this or how how will it be held or taken? It's a pretty good list. You know, I've added things to it over the years. There's a six second rule that I've added to the

• 23:44Dan Harris?

  Like a six second delay?

• 23:45Speaker 04

  Six second delay, right? So when you're talking to somebody or when you're listening like so I add listening into speech, by the way, so listening is the really important part of speech. So when somebody else is talking, waiting six seconds before I respond. Because apparently there's been many studies that when a person is processing their own speech, they might not be done yet. And so sometimes at the very end is when the goodies come out. So there's this way that even with your own speech, taking time with it, you know, processing as you're speaking, which again, comes back to that mindfulness piece, the samadhi, how connected are we to our body before things come out of our mouth?

• 24:28Speaker 04

  So this speech is really, it's a whole process, right? Our mind is involved, our body's involved. There's a process involved and knowing that what comes out of our mouth is going to have an impact. Someone is then going to hear it and there's a feedback loop. So the the speaking and the listening is a constant feedback loop. There are people that speak at and we've all been on the receiving end of that. So you can kind of tell they're not really there. They don't even care that you're there. They just want to talk. It might be out of nervousness. It might be out of whatever. Oh, idle chatter. That was the other one. Those moments, you know, when you're with somebody who just doesn't know how to not talk. Every second of space has to be filled up. And, you know,

• 25:12Speaker 04

  there's compassion for that. It's usually out of nervousness or something, but

• 25:16Dan Harris?

  There is a word for that.

• 25:17Speaker 04

  Oh, what is it?

• 25:18Dan Harris?

  Sumpapalapa.

• 25:19Speaker 04

  Sumpapalapa. I've heard you. I've heard you say that word before. Yeah, it's a good word.

• 25:26Dan Harris?

  Joseph Goldstein, the great meditation teacher, he, sumpapalapa is like the airtime filling move that many of us make. And his point is very similar to yours, which is when you notice yourself doing that, it's a good like wake up call. Like, all right, check it out. Why am I doing this? And often he says, if you dig, You'll see the impulse is, here I am, look at me.

• 25:52Speaker 04

  Right, here I am, look at me. Yeah. And then there's the opposite, you know, again, that this feedback loop is, I kind of grew up in a family that was like, we don't want to hear a thing you have to say. So I used to just really, I was an abbreviator of everything. I was like, okay, you gotta get it out really fast and then stop, because nobody really wants to hear what you have to say. And so I actually had to learn, because there's a generosity of our speech and listening also, I had to learn how to talk, like, from a place that wasn't rushed, or assumed that somebody didn't want to hear. That was interesting for me to learn as a Dharma teacher, to learn how to actually give a whole talk versus a five-minute talk. You know,

• 26:33Speaker 04

  so there's so much of our conditioning in our speech, how it was in our families. Like, my family also, it's like, if my dad was really quiet, someone was in trouble, right? And just like, all of these things, speech has so much in it. I mean, of course, it's our words, and the importance of our words, and the impact of our words. And there's so much beauty there, and there's so much harm there. And, you know, words now, and social media, and in just how we can destroy a person in a few words, and how we can create so much beauty in a few words. It's a big responsibility. You know, our speech is a big responsibility, far beyond the lips moving. Yeah.

• 27:15Dan Harris?

  Just to say to the listener, right speech in and of itself is a vast

• 27:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:20Dan Harris?

  discipline. And I will drop in the show notes, some links to episodes we've done on this, but in the spirit of wanting to get a panoramic sense of what Buddhist ethics is all about, I'll keep moving if that's cool.

• 27:34Speaker 04

  Awesome.

• 27:34Dan Harris?

  So, just again, because of the, all the lists can be confusing.

• 27:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:38Dan Harris?

  We are focusing right now on the ethical aspect of the Eightfold Path, which has three parts to it. The first is speech, the second part is action. What does that mean, action?

• 27:50Speaker 04

  Right. So, action is actually where the five precepts live. So again, another list, it's all about that. So, that is where the five precepts live. So, action merely of how we show up, right? How we show up in the world through the five precepts. Not killing. And then speech again, right? Because so many of these lists end up circling in on each other. Not stealing, so not taking what isn't freely given. How we are with our speech, how we are with our sexuality, and then how we are with intoxicants or mind-altering substances. So those are the five: killing, stealing, speech, sexuality, and intoxicants.

• 28:32Dan Harris?

  Okay, so let's go within this.

• 28:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:35Dan Harris?

  We're now in a list within a list.

• 28:37Speaker 04

  I know, I'm sorry. I wish I had a dry erase board. You know, I like the visual of that.

• 28:43Dan Harris?

  Me too.

• 28:43Speaker 04

  You know, it's helpful.

• 28:44Dan Harris?

  Me too.

• 28:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:45Dan Harris?

  All right, but I think as long as we're

• 28:46Speaker 04

  But that's fine.

• 28:46Dan Harris?

  As long as we're clear with the listener, they're cool. Okay, so let's walk through the five precepts. The first one is not killing.

• 28:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:54Dan Harris?

  This is common to pretty much every faith. But what does it mean? Because you can go really deep and creative on this concept of killing. So hold forth, if you will.

• 29:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I talked a little bit about this idea of veganism, right? So one would certainly be not taking the life of another human would be a great place to start. And again, this is, so I'm going to go back to a path factor list of intention. Intention holds a lot of space in the precepts. So what is our intention versus what is the impact?

• 29:30Dan Harris?

  What's a path factor?

• 29:31Speaker 04

  Oh, the Eightfold Path.

• 29:32Dan Harris?

  Okay.

• 29:33Speaker 04

  So the first is, in the wisdom aspect, there's view and intention.

• 29:40Speaker 04

  Sorry, yo. It all makes so much sense as a thing, and it's just so, yeah. Our intention, well, let's just think about intention as I walk through these five. There's that old metaphor of the surgeon who has the knife, right? So a knife in the abdomen in the hands of a killer is one thing. A knife in the abdomen of the hands of a surgeon is another, right? So it's sort of like, what is the intention here? So just knife and abdomen doesn't have to be a bad thing. It depends on what the intention is and who's holding that knife. We could walk through each of the precepts in that way. So this idea of not killing As anybody that drives a car walks down the street,

• 30:24Speaker 04

  you know, bugs, insects are killed all the time. And you know, you'll see in the Jain tradition, they'll actually walk down the street with a broom, you know, and apparently it's to move the bugs out of the way. That's the thing. And when you go on retreats, we'll see there's bug catchers, right? And people will be deep in their samadhi, deep in their meditation practice, and they'll lift and move and shift every bug that they see. And it feels good, right? Like, there's this wholesomeness to it. It's the other part of this is like, we're not going to kill, but we're also going to protect life, right? So we're going to take care of life. We're going to make sure that life can thrive. You know, if we look at this culturally and societally, I mean, we live in a culture of factory farming, where there's a dissonance.

• 31:08Speaker 04

  As most people, I would say, if they really knew, or if they had to see where their meat was coming from, and I know there's a lot of people that do exposes and show this, we probably wouldn't be in as much of the meat industry as we are. And so there's this way that we can really disconnect, just as humans living in a capitalistic society, that this is, you know, how we move. And so when we sensitize ourselves because we're in the practice with it, because we've taken it on as a practice, as a way of being in the world. I shared this on, when I talked to you before. When I really first took this on, I was living in a house that had rodents.

• 31:53Speaker 04

  And I didn't want to trap them. I didn't want to kill them. I didn't want to poison them. So I got cats, right? So that was my sort of first precept, creative way of dealing with the rodents in my house was cats. And it worked. It was great. Now, they were still being killed. It just wasn't by me. It was like, it felt more like the cycle of life, right? There's the mosquitoes. There's the flies. There's the moths in your rice that you end up wasting the food, right? I talked to many monastics about, what do I do with the moths? Do I kill the moths? Or do I throw out the food? And then I feel bad because there are starving people, right? And so like, we're constantly grappling with this state of what's living and what is harm. And again, that's for us. That's for you.

• 32:39Speaker 04

  This ehi pasiko, like you said, see for yourself. How does it sit with you? You know, how does it rest with you?

• 32:49Dan Harris?

  Coming up, Joanna and I continue discussing the precepts.

• 32:59Speaker 05

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• 33:28Dan Harris?

  Okay, so first precept.

• 33:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 33:30Dan Harris?

  List within a list within a list. We're now on the precepts.

• 33:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 33:33Dan Harris?

  The first precept is not killing. The next is not stealing. I mean, there's the obvious interpretation.

• 33:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 33:39Dan Harris?

  But how far can we take that?

• 33:40Speaker 04

  Yeah. And so it's often worded as not taking what isn't freely given, right? So anything that someone didn't say to you, you could have, you shouldn't take. So that can go really far, right? Do you pick the fruit off the tree? Probably not if you're reaching over somebody's wall to take it. When I went to Japan, it was so beautiful. Like, I literally could leave something as I did. I left something for an hour because I forgot it. And I ran back and it was still there. And it was a valuable thing, right? And I was like, oh, wow, there's a really strong seela here. And I knew that about that place. That's actually why I went at that time, because my kids were little. And it was either another place that I won't name, or Japan. And I decided Japan because I was taking them by myself because I knew the seela

• 34:25Speaker 04

  was so strong there. And I don't know if that's because it is just culturally embedded. I don't know if it's because you get your hand cut off because you take it or what the thing is. Like, I don't know what the reason is behind it. But knowing that you're in a place, your stuff is safe, feels really good.

• 34:41Dan Harris?

  Yeah.

• 34:42Speaker 04

  It feels really good. And that is one of the big parts of the precepts, is you are helping others feel safe around you. Others know that they are safe around you. So if I saw a phone sitting somewhere, you know, my tendency would be to pick it up and really make sure it got back to the person that it belonged to. That would feel really good to me and I would go against all odds to try to make that happen, right? And again, so there's that reciprocity, like, I feel good. This is that thing we were talking about.

• 35:13Dan Harris?

  There's self-interest here.

• 35:14Speaker 04

  This is a self-interest, right? You know, now, it can go a lot of ways now in terms of, a lot of climate activists are using this as like, how are we constantly taking, depleting the earth? You know, we're taking something that isn't ours to take because we are the dominant species and just because we can and because we want it and because we feel like we need it, right? So it can go that far and then it could go something as simple as, I really don't like it when my daughter borrows my t-shirts all the time and I can't find them when I want to wear them, right? So she's taking from me and she did not ask me if she could take it. Now, it's funny until I want to wear that t-shirt. Again, this is something that you could really immerse yourself in.

• 35:58Speaker 04

  Some people will say, taking somebody else's time, right? So that's one that has become a thing or taking, you know, when I was, when I was a starving student and I worked for, I will not say who the network was, but I was a page at a network and I really needed toilet paper and I thought it was perfectly fine to take toilet paper from the bathroom, right? I still think it's fine. But, you know, not a lot of offices get completely depleted because people are, take all this stuff, you know? Again, for us to really pay attention to, obviously, don't take someone's car, don't take someone's, you know, stealing is stealing, but how that differs for us and how we hold

• 36:43Speaker 04

  it might look really different. Some people feel like they're really sticking it to the man when they take something, right? And they feel like it's justified because they feel like there isn't equity. You know, again, I could go way too far with a lot of these, but I think it's good for people to think of for themselves, yeah.

• 37:01Dan Harris?

  I've heard a link made between speech and not taking what isn't freely offered. Like, if you are interrupting somebody, which unfortunately I've done a couple of times in this conversation with you, if you are taking all the attention in a conversation or in a social setting, that could be a second precept issue to explore.

• 37:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, for sure. Why not? I mean, that's the thing. I think when people actually decide to do it for themselves and not because they think it's a mandate, or because they think they have to, or because someone told them to, or maybe because they don't really understanding it, they're just thinking at it from a conceptual level instead of really immersing in the precept. And I mean, some of the most interesting things get discovered, right? And that can be one of them. It might be like, wow, I really noticed myself doing that often.

• 37:53Dan Harris?

  Third precept is speech again.

• 37:56Speaker 04

  Back to speech. Yep. It holds a lot of places. So yeah, those things I already mentioned, like, is it true? Is it idle chatter? Is it gossip and slander? I mean, Joseph has a great story about gossip and slander. I'm sure you've heard him say it. And I might get the percentages wrong, but he said that he, at one point, you know, early on, decided to take that one on fully and realized it took about 90% of his speech away. And that he found he didn't really have much to talk about anymore if he wasn't talking about somebody else with somebody else. And I think that could be true. I took that one on for a while, too. And my friends are like, who are you? Where did you go? But it felt good. You know, it felt really good. And again, what's beneath it? Like, what's the need?

• 38:38Speaker 04

  Why do I actually need to share that information about somebody else? Or what is it doing for me? I work at USC. I teach at USC. And working with college kids around this one is really good. It's really fun. Like, we explore it in a really fun way. And again, like, to be liked, you know, often will stretch the truth, to be more interesting, to have a better life. You know, a lot of them talked about how they just wanted to make more friends. And they felt that they weren't enough, right? And so speech is powerful.

• 39:12Dan Harris?

  Fourth is sexuality.

• 39:13Speaker 04

  Fourth is sexuality. And so that's not causing harm through our sexuality. This one I taught a whole course on, too, because it was so filled with so much for people. There's a lot of spaciousness in it. One of the precepts for the monastics, so the monastics have a lot more precepts. The nuns have a certain amount, and the monks have a certain amount. It's in the 200s to 300s for them. But one of them was to not have sex with a melon, right? Or what's often said is the Buddha made these precepts because they happened, and then he made the precept, right? So the big ones are don't have sex with animals. Don't have sex with minors, which minors for us here in this country, right, is 18.

• 39:55Speaker 04

  Again, this is a societal number that was put on something. But back then, you know, children got married at 10, 11, 12 years old, 2,600 years ago. Right. So it was really supposed to be who is under the care of their parents. Seduction was one of them, like not to seduce. Whereas now we're like, well, seduction's kind of nice. Like, there's a part of it, but they meant in that way that you were talking somebody out of what they would want to do for themselves, right? Obviously against anyone's will. So there's nothing saying anything, you know, in Buddhism around genders. It's really consensual sex. You're not meant to break up a marriage.

• 40:39Speaker 04

  But beyond that, it's kind of like games on, right? There's nothing, you know, I was talking to, you know, a bunch of young people in Hollywood. A lot of people were suffering around, well, I'm into kink or I'm into these kind of other things. Am I breaking a precept? And again, it's for everyone to explore for themselves. But it was like, from what I read as far back as I could, and I, Bhikkhu Bodhi actually wrote a lot about communities, you know, and so he brought the precepts into that and he explored like what the suttas might have said. There's a lot of permission, but how much do you trust yourself was the thing, right? Like, I was not trustworthy in that area at all.

• 41:22Speaker 04

  And I caused myself and others a lot of harm around my sexuality. So that was something I really had to learn and learn and learn and learn and didn't want to suffer anymore, right? So I think it's an important one. It's an important one for, a lot of people will be like, well, I'm married, so I can't cause harm through my sexuality. But, you know, a lot of harm, you know, can be done even within, I'll call it a marriage, but there's lots of different ways of being in partnership. But the idea of if somebody is withholding their sex, you know, because they're mad at a partner. And so it's like, I, don't touch me, which is a punishment. There's ways of

• 42:06Speaker 04

  Overwhelming somebody who might not be interested in having sex, right? Even if you're in a partnership. So it's not only about single people. It's not only about breaking your marriage and going out of your marriage, but it can also be like, again, I'm using the word marriage, meaning whatever you called your partnership, and it might be multiple partners, right? But there are ways that we can still cause harm even within certain agreements. So really, that consent is a big piece of what I've read that the precept specifically talks about. Is it two consenting adults?

• 42:46Dan Harris?

  No melons.

• 42:46Speaker 04

  Not a goat, not a melon.

• 42:50Dan Harris?

  Actually, melons are OK for us if we're not monks or nuns.

• 42:53Speaker 04

  Right, yeah, that's for, that's in the vinaya. That's for the monks and nuns. Yes, melons are OK, or whatever. Yeah, it's good to know, see? Permission, like, there's so much permission. And then, but do you feel good about it? Like, that's what it's going to come down to.

• 43:09Speaker 04

  Don't tell your grocer before or after. Like, keep it to yourself. But, yeah, so, again, a lot of space there, and a lot of harm can be caused there.

• 43:23Dan Harris?

  Yes, so we've gone through four of the precepts. Let's do the fifth, which is not using intoxicants to the point of heedlessness. Is that the right?

• 43:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, so there are some fundamentalist Buddhists that really feel like the word heedlessness was never there, that it was just no intoxicants, period. There is a sutta that talks about not even so much as on the tip of a blade of grass. Right, so, pretty much nothing. Some interpret it that way. Again, these are very old sutras that were oral traditions, right? Passed down, so the interpreter and how that is relayed. And then some add on to it that lead to heedlessness. So that would be like, at what point do you become heedless after using an intoxicant?

• 44:12Dan Harris?

  I know many Dharma teachers who drink wine.

• 44:15Speaker 04

  Oh, as do I. Again, this is for somebody to know for themselves, right? Like, I know plenty of people who are addicts, and I worked a lot in that community, who one glass of wine is never going to be OK. For them, the precept of... Of nothing is what's going to cause the least amount of harm. Right. So I don't want to give permission to anybody to say, oh, well, some Buddhists do or Dharma teachers do, right? It might not be okay for that person. And for someone else, that tight, hard limitation feels different than what these precepts are meant to represent. Right. Which is again, see for yourself.

• 44:57Speaker 04

  So the use of plant medicines have become a very popular thing. Ketamine therapies, psilocybin therapies. And like, all of these things have really been groundbreaking and is so helpful to a lot of people for all kinds of things. And so to put a limitation on and say absolutely no intoxicants. Now, whether that's considered an intoxicant or a medicine, right? But to some, it's like hard line. No, nothing that is not natural to our bodies.

• 45:26Dan Harris?

  Would those people not use anesthesia?

• 45:30Speaker 04

  Oh, no, I'm sure they would use anesthesia.

• 45:31Dan Harris?

  Right. So the same thing. I mean, propofol isn't intoxicant.

• 45:36Speaker 04

  Right.

• 45:36Dan Harris?

  It's the only reason why I will agree to a colonoscopy.

• 45:39Speaker 04

  Right.

• 45:40Dan Harris?

  Because of the propofol.

• 45:41Speaker 04

  Right.

• 45:41Dan Harris?

  Not only because I don't feel it while it's happening, but because I enjoy it when I wake up.

• 45:45Speaker 04

  It's your one moment.

• 45:48Dan Harris?

  Sidebar, I think I might have told you this story before, but I was waking up once for my first colonoscopy and I heard myself say,

• 45:57Dan Harris?

  these drugs are amazing. And the nurse didn't even turn around and just said, third time you're telling me.

• 46:05Speaker 04

  That's hysterical. You're like, do I really have to wait seven years for our next colonoscopy?

• 46:11Dan Harris?

  I think I feel a polyp, doctor.

• 46:15Speaker 04

  That's awesome. Yeah. So again, that's why I'm saying heedlessness. Like, let's say the word heedlessness is there. And you know, the thing is like, well, heedlessness would be breaking all four of the other precepts. Right. Like telling somebody off, killing them and, you know, having sex with them while you're doing it or whatever. And so the point of this is, do you have clarity of mind? Are you mindful? Is your samadhi present? Is your mindfulness present? Is your intention present? Can you? You still be on the path, right? Can you still know your path? Because the path, as it's often called, is the prescription, right? It's a prescription for liberation, to be free from suffering. And so if that heedlessness causes you to suffer or do something like get in a car accident

• 46:58Speaker 04

  and hurt somebody or something like that, or even maybe saying something you wish you hadn't said because, you know, you're just feeling a little more free from that glass of wine or that fifth glass of wine, then it's kind of, you're going back, you're spiraling back into, damn it, I fucked around and I found out, right? So do I need to do that anymore? It's just a question for yourself.

• 47:22Dan Harris?

  Sharon Salzberg, another great meditation teacher, often talks about the fact that we don't, the point of meditation is not to like get awesome at meditation. It is to be better at your life.

• 47:32Speaker 04

  Right.

• 47:32Dan Harris?

  And so this, in some ways, can be seen as like a really important extension of the practice, you know?

• 47:37Speaker 04

  It is, and that's why it's the path. Like this thing that we keep pounding, this path, it is a number. You know, oftentimes people will describe it as the three strands of the braid, the seela, samadhi, and panya. You can't make a braid with just two pieces of hair. You need three. I'm sure there's other ways that people explain it, but it's, they all need each other to live off of. So yes, our understanding of what our meditation practice is, naturally in us arises this wellness, this well-being, this stillness, this silence, this clarity, right? Is what naturally comes out of our practice.

• 48:19Dan Harris?

  Coming up, Joanna talks about right livelihood, we talk about our Buddhist tattoos, and then we hit a very compelling and provocative topic, the notion of healthy shame and healthy embarrassment.

• 48:38Speaker 05

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• 49:10Dan Harris?

  So, just to reset, again, sorry to be neurotic about this.

• 49:14Speaker 04

  No, it's great.

• 49:15Dan Harris?

  But we've been dwelling in a list within a list within a list. There's the Eightfold Path. Just to reset, at the top, which is the sort of eight parts of the recipe for getting enlightened. Within the Eightfold Path are these three aspects of wisdom, meditation, and ethics. And we've been looking at the three aspects of ethics within this bucket of the Eightfold Path. And within one of the aspects of ethics in the Eightfold Path, there's a list within a list within a list, which is the five precepts.

• 49:47Speaker 04

  Correct.

• 49:48Dan Harris?

  So we've now, we've come out of that list within a list within a list. And we're going back to the Eightfold Path.

• 49:55Speaker 04

  Livelihood, right.

• 49:55Dan Harris?

  So we've talked about right speech, right action. Again, right action or wise action is where the five precepts live. So let's do livelihood.

• 50:04Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 50:06Speaker 04

  Don't know much about this. What I do know is there are, from the perspective of the Buddhist teaching, anything where you deal in meat, like harming animals, arms, so firearms, alcohol, like all the things that would have you breaking these precepts, right? So dealing in gambling or...

• 50:29Speaker 04

  Making your livelihood off of extrapolating or harming somebody else. Then what would wise livelihood or right livelihood or wholesome livelihood be? Well, what we do. Right? Spreading the dharma, talking about how people can live better. Reflection, contemplation. There are so many beautiful ways of making money. And even some of those, you know, I have a lot of friends who are, let's go back to that first precept for a second. One of their livelihoods is being sustainable farmers, right? So they're raising animals and actually this is where we buy from.

• 51:07Speaker 04

  You know, we buy from these family farms that are raising their animals free range and are eating off of the hills and the valleys of California. And I have not been in the kill room, but are humanely killing the animals, for lack of a better word. There are, I'm sure livelihoods now that maybe would have been seen as one way and aren't now. I mean, some people are even considering hunting in the way that hunting is being done these days as truly ethical practices. And using the whole animal, you know, so I, I respect that. So in terms of livelihood, again, same for yourself, but I don't even like saying some of the things, right? Cause it's like being a bar owner, selling, having a liquor store.

• 51:52Speaker 04

  And I'm, some of those people are quite lovely people and their family businesses. And, you know, there are people that are making amazing wines and have these vineyards. I actually had a student who ran a vineyard and he was coming to me because he was in distress. I kept really grappling with this, this wise livelihood. And so like, we spent months together working on this, right? Cause I wasn't going to give him an answer. It's not my place to say anything, but he really worked through it.

• 52:20Dan Harris?

  I think one way to look at this is this list comes from the Bronze Age, I think, you know, 2,600 years ago. And The Buddhists always had this caveat of ahe posse ko, come see for yourself. So there's this list, but I don't know that every bar owner listening to this

• 52:39Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 52:39Dan Harris?

  needs to rethink their life. It's like, alright,

• 52:42Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 52:43Dan Harris?

  let's

• 52:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 52:44Dan Harris?

  figure out how we relate to this.

• 52:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 52:46Dan Harris?

  How does it feel for us?

• 52:47Speaker 04

  How does it feel for us? I mean, if you keep pouring a 14 year old into a cab at the end of your shift, it might not be the most, you know, wholesome way of spending your day. Like, again, how does it feel, truly? And, you know, people need to make money and some people are supporting families. And one of the beautiful things about the path, again, thinking long, thinking far, thinking wide, is, is there a possibility to work towards something different? And so many people I know that are working through, one of my students was a dancer in a club, you know, and she was really trying to work through, was this the right way for her? And we spent about a good five years working through it, you know, and working on it. And

• 53:27Speaker 04

  it was a long-term practice. And it was beautiful, you know? And again, it was for her to work through. I was there to support her. And no one was calling it wrong, or bad, or something she shouldn't do, or something that was helpful and necessary at the time. You have a tattoo.

• 53:44Dan Harris?

  Yeah, I have a tattoo.

• 53:45Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 53:47Dan Harris?

  Inspired by, are you friends with Spring Washam?

• 53:49Speaker 04

  Yeah. Who she was supposed to be on the call this morning to.

• 53:52Dan Harris?

  Oh, she was, okay.

• 53:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 53:54Dan Harris?

  Just for context, tell us about the call that you're referencing.

• 53:57Speaker 04

  There's a call that a few black female teachers have, sometimes rarely, sometimes more often. And there are a few teachers that are on this call. And Spring was meant to be on the call, but I couldn't make it this morning.

• 54:12Dan Harris?

  She and I, not far from here, like about an hour or two south of here, did a one-on-one loving kindness meditation retreat

• 54:18Speaker 04

  That's right. That's right.

• 54:19Dan Harris?

  many years ago.

• 54:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:20Dan Harris?

  And she was joking during it that she wanted me to get the words for the benefit of all beings tattooed on my chest. So I got an acronym of FTBOAB on my wrist.

• 54:30Speaker 04

  Amazing.

• 54:31Dan Harris?

  Which actually is much more useful than a chest tattoo

• 54:33Speaker 04

  For sure.

• 54:34Dan Harris?

  because I see it all the time. And it's just, this is just a reminder. It's a mindfulness

• 54:37Speaker 04

  Yeah. I love it. I love it. Yeah, I have. I have a pecka on my arm, which is a similar.

• 54:46Dan Harris?

  Yes, pecka, not to be confused with Woody Woodpecker, is the Buddhist term for equanimity.

• 54:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, it says, I am the heir to my own karma. My happiness or unhappiness are dependent upon my actions, not upon my wishes. So this is Sila, right? And that's a big reason why I got it. My actions, not upon my wishes. Make mistakes, fall, show up.

• 55:17Dan Harris?

  Would it be fair to say that making mistakes, that is a part of the path?

• 55:22Speaker 04

  Absolutely. Well, I mean, it's part of being human, right? Yeah, I mean, from the time that we're, we learned to crawl, from the time we learned to walk. If we call falling down when a baby's learning to walk a mistake, then it's not a mistake, right? It's just part of learning. It's part of growing. It's part of strengthening. It's part of doing something new and different. If we've been living a certain way and that's all we know, and we're conditioned in that way of living, then it's not necessarily a mistake. It's just we're growing out of one way of being into another. And then it's interesting because like, once we start to know, you know, it's that sort of thing. There's a fable, a story I love to read. It's called autobiography in five short chapters.

• 56:04Speaker 04

  And it's, you're walking down a street, you fall into a hole, you're in the hole, you don't know where you are, you can't get out, it's not my fault, right? And then you're, chapter two, walking down the street, fall into the hole, it's not my fault,

• 56:20Speaker 04

  but you get out. Third chapter, walking down the street, fall into a hole again, how did I get here? You get out. Fourth chapter, walking down the street, fall into the hole, it is my fault, you get right out. Fifth chapter, you walk around the hole, right? So it's, it's that way, like, takes a while. So is that a mistake at first when you don't know, you're unaware, it's not your fault? You don't even know how you got there. But then slowly, over time, we learn, there's even a sixth chapter where you walk down a different street, right? So, so it's.

• 56:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's sort of the the beauty again of that longer path where nobody's hopefully beating us up for it, nobody's shaming us for it, nobody's telling us we're a bad person for it. But we learned through that repeated intention of wanting to grow. Like that north star is there. You know, we have these guidelines, we have these paths, we have these lists, and they're very helpful. And it's a lot, you know, like a lot of these lists at first can fill, you know, some people say it's like driving a car for the first time, right? Where there's like the gear shift and the rearview mirror and there's other people and there's the steering wheel and there's this and there's that and ah, but then after a while you get in a car and you're just driving it, right? Smooth, you got it. Accidents will happen,

• 57:38Speaker 04

  will be taken by surprise, but it becomes more smooth. And that's kind of how these path factors and these precepts all start to work together, you know, in this body of awareness. And we oftentimes recognize things quicker, like our our response time is, doesn't take so long. And and then again, that's where like, maybe being intoxicated, our response time might take a little bit longer. So, oh, like, I know that, right? Or for me, like, with the speech part, right now, in certain political situations, I really have to pay better attention than I would at other times. When I know I'm going to be with certain people

• 58:20Speaker 04

  or in certain situations, my tendency might be to want to really educate. I'll put it in those terms, you know, might not always be useful, or timely, or helpful, or wise, or kind. And so that's where all of these really, so then I need to have mindfulness of my body, an awareness, right? And so this is being in that car, like, we're all in that car together. You're gonna annoy me, that car's gonna be over there. Yeah, but can I just keep driving? There's my, there's direction I'm going and

• 58:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, so how much can we hold? How much can we hold at once? Yeah.

• 59:01Dan Harris?

  This actually kind of brings us nicely to hiri and otapa.

• 59:04Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 59:06Dan Harris?

  So the conventional wisdom in psychological circles is that shame is unhealthy.

• 59:12Speaker 04

  Right, right.

• 59:13Dan Harris?

  In Buddhism, there's this pair of concepts, and by the way, now we've kind of left the list area. There's this pair of concepts, hiri, H-I-R-I, and otapa, O-T-T-A-P-P-A, I think.

• 59:26Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 59:27Dan Harris?

  Which are sometimes referred to as moral shame and moral dread.

• 59:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 59:31Dan Harris?

  And these are healthy things. How do we understand this as a kind of healthy version of shame? These as a kind of healthy version of shame?

• 59:39Speaker 04

  And these are such bad translations, truly. And again, I feel like these are translations that were, you know, kind of like, every version of the Bible goes through the diaspora of the time and who's writing it. And I'm like, I'm not quite sure who put those translations on it. But so can I kind of frame it how?

• 59:57Dan Harris?

  Please.

• 59:58Speaker 04

  In my experience and how some of the teachers that like Ajahn Suchito or Carol Wilson like might frame it, that has really made it helpful for me to understand is we're born into these bodies that has this natural desire, you know, maybe even if we had a good enough parent, we learn to empathize and come into sync with a primary caregiver or givers or tribe. Our nature is to want to please, right? To want to get a positive response, to want to have a nice pleasant feedback

• 1:00:40Speaker 04

  where there isn't punishment involved or an ouch involved. This is a really great way that I like to think of hiri. It's that natural way of wanting to show up with grace and care. And it is a mental state, you know, mental way of being. It's often called our conscience, where we can read the room. Like we can see what's in front of us. And the response that we hope to get is the same one that we're giving. We don't want to be punished.

• 1:01:10Dan Harris?

  Would you say hiri is what we're checking in on when we are fucking around and finding out?

• 1:01:16Speaker 04

  Right, but it's that pre-knowing. It's that way, like if we're just walking down the street and we're in a good mood and we just want to say hi to everybody and we don't need anything bad to happen. We're just like interested in having a good day and we want everyone else to share in that good day. It's that thing. But it's also that experience of like, that moment, maybe when you say something to someone, you're having your good day and you're like, "Nice hair," right? And you're seeing that they are like, "What do they mean by that?" And then you're kind of having that moment of like, "Oh shit, like ew, ew, that felt bad." Like, "I wish I hadn't said it in that way," right? It's that instant feedback. It's that instant, and it's not, yes, they had a response, but it's that like, you wish that hadn't come

• 1:02:00Speaker 04

  out of your mouth. You know, something as simple as that. And so, the moment when you understand that there's been an impact on the person, that's the utapa. So the hiri is that real desire just to, for it all to go well. It's that understanding of knowing how you are impacts the other person. This was, this was the word I was looking for. Just like a self-respect conscience, instinct, your inner ick is the, is one that really works for me. I feel really good about myself, this self-respect that we're talking about, the self-awareness, when I behave and show up in the world in a certain way. This is

• 1:02:43Speaker 04

  that idea of hiri. So where the word shame came from around that, and how it's sometimes translated, is meant to be a growth point from it. It's that moment of that inner ick, "I knew it happened." So the point is not to beat yourself up. So guilt and shame can often be like, kind of put together. But guilt is so self-involved, right? It's really like, "I did something bad," and you kind of spin it on yourself and you start like... Trying to dig your way out of it and apologizing, but not apologizing because you care about how they felt, but apologizing because you want them to feel good about you again, right? So guilt often comes with that, right? It's, I feel like I did something

• 1:03:26Speaker 04

  bad and, and I don't want them to think poorly of me. Shame, from what I understand, is far more, can be very productive. It can be a growth point. It can be something to say, I didn't like how that felt and how can I change through that? How can I not do that again? How can I have a different understanding? How can I experience it again in my body? Like, if we think of the pre-verbal child, when they are reading somebody else, it's not, there's no words coming from it, but there's a feedback loop where they're kind of going, oh, hmm, you know, I watch it with my dogs. My dogs understand, like, oh, she didn't like that? It's out of my vocabulary, right? I don't do that behavior

• 1:04:05Speaker 04

  anymore. And that can look good and bad, right? Because some kids can just be punished. So things are punished out of them. So this is where I think it gets interesting around conditioning versus pure behavior, right? Not conditioned behavior, but that pure desire to want to be a good human and to, again, have empathy and to connect.

• 1:04:32Dan Harris?

  So let me just see if I can sum us up.

• 1:04:34Speaker 04

  Yeah. And this is a lot of my interpretation, like, my understanding of it.

• 1:04:39Dan Harris?

  I don't expect anything.

• 1:04:40Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:04:41Dan Harris?

  Hiri, so we're talking about hiri and utapa, often, you would argue, mistranslated as moral shame and moral dread. Hiri, my understanding, based on talking to you in this conversation thus far, is this inner knowing we have is like, eh, it doesn't feel good when I'm an asshole.

• 1:04:57Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 1:04:58Dan Harris?

  And utapa is kind of, it's a moral shame in that, like, we have an inner sense of, like, when we've put a foot wrong.

• 1:05:07Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:05:08Dan Harris?

  Moral dread or utapa is kind of about a healthy sense of worrying what other people think of us.

• 1:05:14Speaker 04

  It's an impact. Yeah.

• 1:05:15Dan Harris?

  Yes.

• 1:05:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:05:16Dan Harris?

  How we are in the community, how our relationships are with other people. Sometimes I've heard it described as, like, would you want your Buddhist teacher to see you doing this?

• 1:05:25Speaker 04

  It's funny. Yeah. We always talk about, would you want them to see that in your grocery cart?

• 1:05:29Dan Harris?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:30Speaker 04

  That's interesting. Yeah, I'm going to give you an example of a hiri-utapa moment I had. I was dropping Andre off at the airport, my husband at the airport, and this woman flipped me off. I was pulling out in my car. I've never road raged before. Let's put that first. Never had, like, I've never had that experience of like, road rage. And so normally I'm just kind of, because I've learned from my practice, I would rather be like, oh, I'm sorry. You know, yeah, you're right. I'll just keep driving or, you know, no one can piss me off that much. It's not really worth it. Well, this woman, oh, I'm going to precursor it with, it was the day of the fires here in Los Angeles. So we're talking February, early February, and Los Angeles was on fire.

• 1:06:15Speaker 04

  And I had a lot of friends who were very impacted and we were impacted a little bit, but I was in a, in a mood. Right? So I wasn't as maybe grounded or mindful or engaged with myself as normal. I was upset. It was a really tragic day one. So I was dropping him off at the airport and I'm pulling out. I didn't know this woman was trying to get in. And she's flipping me off and just like yelling at me. And I was like, whoa, I didn't even know you were there. So I was like, okay, okay. And I'm shuffling to get out and then she ends up blocking me unintentionally. So I very intentionally laid my hand on the horn for like 10, 15 seconds, like long, hard, loud.

• 1:07:00Speaker 04

  To the point where the guy who was directing traffic says to me, it's not that big of a deal, lady. Like he's saying that to me, right? And then she and I are both like this at each other. We were, it was so satisfying. It felt so good, so good.

• 1:07:14Dan Harris?

  Did it though?

• 1:07:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, in that moment, it was everything. And I was like, why haven't I done this before? In that moment, the second I pull away, Ota Pa, right? I lost my Hiri. Hiri was gone. Awareness was gone. I was all caught in righteousness and anger and whatever else was there, indignation. And it took seconds like after, especially when the guy, like, he was so calm. He was like, it's not that big of a deal, lady. It was like, bing. And I'm driving away and Ota Pa hit me.

• 1:07:50Dan Harris?

  Healthy embarrassment.

• 1:07:51Speaker 04

  Healthy embarrassment. And just like really Joanna, like, was it really worth it? It was so, it like, it was three seconds of total pleasure and it was more like released, you know, like all of the. Whatever was coming up from the fires and that it just was like, thank you for showing up so that I could have you to like, release on, you know? But then after just that, like, oh, that was not my best me. I wanted to take it back. And that lasted, so the three seconds of pleasure, the utapa lasted three hours. I mean, it lasted, I'm still talking about it, right? So it's still here, like, there's still, just like, there's still a spider I killed that

• 1:08:35Speaker 04

  to this day I can see. It's when I think about like, the first precept, right? Or it's funny, the stuff that'll, that'll really stick with you. So it's that moment of really understanding. I used to work in prisons and in juvenile detention facilities, and a lot of times, they would talk about those five seconds that changed their lives, right? And where they are now. Because we like to think of people in prison as bad people, you know? And it's like, a bad moment that somebody had. And that's like, the true outplay of utapa, right? But it's that, I made a commitment to myself that I don't need to do that again, right? And that feels really good. It feels good to have that knowing.

• 1:09:19Speaker 04

  I'd heard about road rage, and I know a lot of people that really like it, like, they get off on it, right? It's like, such a thing for some people, or road ragers even, like, they label themselves. And I was like, yeah, I don't, I don't need that, I don't need that label. I don't need that tattoo. My mouth is just unskillful at times. I think I'm really smart and clever and funny and right. And so, I often will have these experiences where I will have said something to a friend, and I've gotten very good at apologies. Not the, I'm sorry, you know, so that I feel better, not the guilt kind of apology, but the, oh, I really understand that that was unskillful. I want them to know that I know.

• 1:10:01Speaker 04

  And sometimes I'll make that call, and they'll be like, I don't even know what you're talking about, right? Which is fine, it was still my hiri. It was still my hiri and my utapa. And there's other times that they'll just be like, yeah, thank you, you know, that did feel a little odd. It just gives me clarity. It gives me clarity on the moment. You know, there's obviously like, the tiniest of things that we do. And then there's, again, just going back to like, these social consciousness of Maybe you're indoctrinated into a family or a worldview where

• 1:10:39Speaker 04

  something I would see as really atrocious is part of your culture. It's part of the way that you were raised and so it fits. I wonder about that. I think about that. You know, we're born into different eras. The Buddha talks about, this is getting into a whole other thing, but just talks about when we talk about karma, right, which is action. And when we talk about action, like karma is a big part of it, intention and action. But our karma could be very much dictated by the era that we're born, the body that we're born into. You know, the families that we're born into. And so when I think about hearing otapa in that term, is it truly like a human knowing

• 1:11:21Speaker 04

  without any conditions yet on it? And then how often do we need to get deconditioned or unlearn? You know, so again, that's something that I just like to play with and grapple with. Because we can get very righteous in ways of being or ways of thinking or ways that we think other people should be. And where does hearing otapa live in that?

• 1:11:48Dan Harris?

  I think what makes them, I keep saying this is kind of a healthy version of shame and a healthy version of embarrassment.

• 1:11:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:11:55Dan Harris?

  And this might be a good place to kind of wrap it up. I think what makes them healthy as opposed to unhealthy is that an unhealthy shame, which is most shame frankly, and guilt and embarrassment is your, there's a lot of self in it. You're telling yourself a story. I did this quote unquote, bad thing. I am a bad person.

• 1:12:14Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:12:14Dan Harris?

  I'm this kind of person because I did that thing. You're putting your head further up your ass because you're telling yourself this whole story about yourself as opposed to the healthy part is like, yeah, I, in Buddhism, it's sometimes referred to as like a wise remorse. Yeah, I, I did this bad thing. I should make the call and apologize and demonstrate that I clearly understand and offer to make some sort of amends. But I'm not. Not stuck.

• 1:12:41Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:12:41Dan Harris?

  In what I sometimes call like a psychic constipation. Where I'm to keep going with the scatological references here. Of where I nothing can happen, nothing can move because I'm stuck. In this story about myself as opposed to thinking about what the harm might have been to somebody else.

• 1:12:58Speaker 04

  Absolutely. Yeah, no, that's good. It's got a lot of good. The term that you used earlier, it's it's that self involved. It's a difference between self awareness and self involved, right?

• 1:13:09Dan Harris?

  Yes.

• 1:13:09Speaker 04

  Because, again, it takes us out of the relational aspect. If we're using Sela in terms of the relational aspect and it's just spinning us in on ourselves. And we know what that feels like sitting on the cushion. So when we've had a bad day of Sela, right? It's a different experience to sit on the cushion. It's a different experience in our meditation. If we're spending all of our time in in a review of the day before or a review and how you're a bad person and how you're being self critical. It's really different than watching what happens, which is so beautiful. When we're not constantly breaking the precept or causing harm in some ways. We actually get to see the practice as it truly is, which is how the mind works and how

• 1:13:55Speaker 04

  we can have spaciousness and how it can be such a beautiful intimate review of what's actually happening versus, again, the conditioned response and habit response to a behavior, you know? And we don't get past that if we're constantly like apologizing or

• 1:14:17Speaker 04

  in some way in our mind, just spinning out. Yeah, we don't get to grow. Yeah, again, it's a it's a path.

• 1:14:26Dan Harris?

  Before I let you go.

• 1:14:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:14:27Dan Harris?

  Is there something we should have talked about, but didn't?

• 1:14:30Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, forgiveness is a good, just a little, a good thing to have on this.

• 1:14:35Dan Harris?

  Sure.

• 1:14:35Speaker 04

  To just as a as a practice to.

• 1:14:41Speaker 04

  When we make that mistake or break that precept, you know, as we call it, that understanding is, again, like you had pointed out, is not to be, that it's not helpful to beat ourselves up. It's not helpful to beat somebody else up. And how the forgiveness practice works is have I caused harm to myself? Have I caused harm to somebody else or who has somebody caused harm to me? Right? And all these are practices to liberate our hearts from these, a precept that's been broken, or maybe one that's been broken that we've had the impact from. Forgiveness practice has been a really nice way for me.

• 1:15:21Speaker 04

  I could not actually let myself out of that cycle that you were talking about until I forgave myself for some of the harms that I caused through breaking the precepts or through not having, you know, strong sila. And it's not forgiveness in a superfluous way of like, oh, now it's better. Right? It's never to say, oh, I'm forgiven, now I can do it again. Or I forgive you, now you can harm me again. It's very much a way to liberate our hearts from the constant chatter of shame or remorse or guilt. That is not the healthy version, not the true Hiri Otpa version.

• 1:16:01Dan Harris?

  Can you just run through the practice one more time? So people, if they want to do it in their own life, can do it?

• 1:16:05Speaker 04

  Yep. So the first part is how I've caused harm to myself. And it's often phrased beautifully as knowingly or unknowingly, out of my own hurt or confusion. How I've caused harm to myself. How I've caused harm to somebody else, knowingly or unknowingly, out of my own confusion or delusion. And then how has somebody else caused me harm? Which can often be the biggest one for people, especially if there's been any childhood trauma or abuse that can really take over somebody's whole life. Right? And it's hard to grow past and beyond that.

• 1:16:48Speaker 04

  It can be a really big heart's release. So how somebody else may have caused harm to you, knowingly or unknowingly, out of their own confusion or delusion. It's a, not only a forgiveness practice, but a compassion practice.

• 1:17:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's quite beautiful. I actually couldn't do Metta practice until I forgave myself. I couldn't allow myself Metta for myself until I forgave myself for a lot of my earlier life harms and transgressions. Yeah. Yeah, so that all just feeds each other, right? So then that makes me want to just show up as a better human. And do I make mistakes? Yes. Do I have awareness around it? Yes. Yeah, not everybody likes me.

• 1:17:38Dan Harris?

  Who doesn't like you? Other than the woman in the car.

• 1:17:41Speaker 04

  Right. She probably really likes me now, though. We actually had a good agreement. Our fuckies were like, we got it. We saw each other. We were looking right in each other's eyes.

• 1:17:51Dan Harris?

  For those listening who do like you and want to get more from you, where can we? Do you have a website?

• 1:17:57Speaker 04

  I do.

• 1:17:58Dan Harris?

  Where can we learn more about you and also maybe talk a little bit about your work at Apple?

• 1:18:03Speaker 04

  Yeah. Well, I do have a website, JoannaHardy.org. I'm not doing a whole lot right now, mostly because I'm just giving myself a little bit of a break. I do teacher retreats occasionally. I have a group in Los Angeles if people live in Los Angeles and want to come to that group. And then I am working for Apple at Fitness Plus. It's a great app and I do five, 10, and 20 minute meditations. And we do things like calm and sleep and sound and focus and resilience and kindness. So there's lots of great meditations that we do. And it's really, it feels like right livelihood. I feel like I'm getting to reach a lot of people who wouldn't normally go to meditation

• 1:18:47Speaker 04

  because it is a fitness app. So people are going to work out and to get fit. And then suddenly they stumble upon this meditation thing. And a lot of people, it's kind of the add-on to all of their workouts, you know? So it's a great way to integrate it into your day, you know, even if for five minutes in your car. So I'm really appreciating getting to do that work. And then we'll see what's next.

• 1:19:14Dan Harris?

  I appreciate you coming on the show.

• 1:19:16Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 1:19:21Dan Harris?

  Thanks again to Joanna Hardy. Just to say to you, the listener, right speech is in itself a vast discipline, and I will drop in the show notes some links to episodes we've done on this. It's so fascinating. Don't forget that we've got a guided meditation that comes with this episode. It's from our Teacher of the Month, Sebene Selassie, who is also a close friend of mine and Joanna's, and it's all about how to tune into your inner guidance system, to use Sebene's term. The goal here is to help you operationalize everything you just learned in that conversation with Joanna, and just pound it into your neurons, as I like to say. Seb will also be doing a live meditation and Q&A session on Tuesday, October 21st.

• 1:20:03Dan Harris?

  These guided meditations are only for people who are subscribers over at DanHarris.com. Subscribers also get weekly live meditation and Q&A sessions. The next one's coming up on Tuesday, October 21st. That's me solo. And finally, don't forget about the Meditation Party Retreat on October 24th through 26th. Seb will be there. Jeff Warren, Afosu Jones-Cortez. It's gonna be awesome. Link in the show notes. Finally, thank you to everybody who works so hard on this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vassili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Cashmere is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.